A few weeks ago, I attended the San Diego Writers Conference, put on by San Diego State University. It was my first time at this event so I wondered how it would work out.. My big questions (and the answers, now that it’s over):
- Would it be worth the money (yes)
- Would it be well-run (yes again)
- Would the speakers be knowledgeable and on topic (another big yes)
- Would the agent/editor I spent extra money to chat with be helpful (a huge yes)
- Would the people I met be as passionate about writing as I am (yep yep yep)
- Would the Saturday night banquet be something other than chicken (OK–no Saturday night banquet–another plus for this event. Instead, they had a networking lunch where you sat at a table with other writers of your genre. Loved that approach).
My top four surprises–things I didn’t expect to hear about writers and writing and made a huge impression on me:
- Many author-presenters were published both traditionally and self-pubbed. This used to be rare–now, it seems the norm. They had lots of reasons, not just one standard.
- Authors must have digital platforms. That’s right–no longer recommended. Now, you need a blog at least, more is better. As Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary said: “Publishers want a great idea from an author with a great platform who has a great voice.“
- Italics for thoughts is outdated (who knew?).
- 70% of the attendees at the conference were over 50ish.
And finally, aside from these four surprises, here are my top 16 take-ways:
- Almost no one used digital devices. I was on my own with my iPad and digital note-taking. Everyone else used a trusty pen and paper.
- If you self-pub, an Amazon ranking of 250,000th in sales or above is considered good.
- One of the fixes mentioned for a story was to give the protagonist a dog. It seems everyone loves dogs.
- Another fix for a novel is to fit it neatly into a genre. Sure, you can break all the rules and call it your artistic calling or your voice, but it hurts the likelihood of you getting picked up.
- #1 complaint of publishers/agents about a story: Pacing was off, too much backstory, stakes weren’t high enough (OK, that’s three)
- Doubt kills more books than failure ever will.
- Publishers expect authors to hit the ground running with clean, polished work. They no longer want to apprentice you.
- Make sure your spelling and grammar are accurate–typos bring a query to a dead halt.
- Never say: I want to be a writer.
- Stay away from people who don’t get it.
- Have a day job so you don’t worry about paying the bills. It also teaches you about life.
- Don’t tell readers everything. Let them participate in the story. Hemingway said: “The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth being above the water.”
- “If you aren’t over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” –TS Elliot.
- There are only two plots:
- Hero takes a journey
- Stranger comes to town.
- An ordeal served up without perspective is merely an ordeal.
- Read–and memorize–“Elements of Style”.
Overall, this conference gets an A. I can’t think of anything I didn’t like and will probably attend next year. Who’s with me?
More on writing advice:
How to Write Like a Pulitzer Prize Winner
15 Traits Critical to a Successful Writer
8 Things Writers Can Do No One Else Can
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her book at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.
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Reblogged this on quirkywritingcorner and commented:
One of these days I’ll go to a conference.
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Thanks for the reblog
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This is totally on my must do list!
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You won’t regret it. I’ll send a shout-out next year and maybe we can meet up while we’re there.
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That would be Perfect! 🙂
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Fantastic guidance Jacqui!
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I love when I get more from a conference than I give. I’ll be attending this next year.
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What a surprise to hear that almost everyone was using pen and paper! And having a protagonist with a dog made me feel right at home. There are really a lot of novels with dogs…but then dogs are adorable. They are so uninhibited in expressing their affection…
Fun and interesting post, Jacqui. Thanks for sharing your conference experience. 🙂
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Thanks, Carol. Those four points–and more–truly amazed me. I consider it a good day when I get one epiphany. Now I have four!
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It sounds like you had an amazing time. The non italicised thoughts comments are intriguing. Personally I don’t like the addition of ‘(I, he, she) thought’, so I’m going to be a rebel and continue with the italics, either that or put the thought (without speech marks) on a separate paragraph. I’ve seen people add thoughts in brackets and that sometimes works. It’s an interesting one, I might even write a post about it! Thanks for sharing the highs of the conference 🙂
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I did. I’m having difficulty moving away from italics. The fact that Carrie reinforced it makes me think I’ll probably need to alter my habits.
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It just came to me, though, that inner dialogue (where the character is talking to themselves in their head) is still represented in italics and that is what I was thinking about yesterday. Phew, I can still do that!
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Inner dialogue–hadn’t thought of that. Yes, of course.
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I’m loving everything that you have posted on your blog Jacqui. It’s full of insights. Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences. Cheers to you.
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Writer conferences get me out into the world. I was surprised how well I did, walking up to strangers, asking to join them. That is so not me!
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It sounds like you got lot out of this, Jacqui and thanks so much for sharing what you learned here. I’ve been published both traditionally and self-pubbed – and highly recommend self-pubbed 🙂
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You are one of those group that so surprised me. I didn’t know there were so many authors who followed both routes. Congrats on that, Dianne.
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Some of this I knew, but more of it I didn’t. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Anna from elements of emaginette
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I love it when I learn four new tidbits in one conference. Sigh.
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Jacqui, the post was so informative. I’ve stunned by the fact that italics aren’t used for character’s thoughts. When writing in 3rd person, does that mean you keep on adding “s/he thought”? Personally, I like the italics.
Question about conferences: I realize this was your first one but… What is the ball park figure of how much a writers conference costs?
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I was stunned to, and hoping I’d get thoughts from you-all. Thank goodness Carrie weighed in with ‘Yeah, they’re right’. This approach to italics is way out of my usual.
This conference was about $450, plus hotel because I didn’t want to commute. It’s cheaper than others and comparable to some I’ve also attended. Value for the money: it’s the best so far.
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Jacqui, what a great conference and a brilliant summing up. Lots of good solid advice and I’m making notes – on paper with a pencil! Does it have to be a dog?? Doesn’t a cat count??
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I read somewhere about this difference between dogs and cats: A dog experiences all the petting and humans feeding him and caring for him and thinks, ‘Gee, these humans must be Gods’. A cat experiences all the petting and being fed and cuddled and catered to and things, ‘Gee, I must be a God’.
THAT is probably why it must be a dog rather than a cat!
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Heehee! That’s a new one and I like it! Okay, so cats are out…
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Well, I’m a dog person so it makes perfect sense to me!
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Jacqui,
Really interesting post – made me want to attend a writers conference despite the fact I’m not writing!
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It might re-inspire you, Judy. although, I think with the success of your classes, you’re pretty busy!
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I take my iPad to conferences. Thanks for sharing what publishers and agents dislike the most. I had no idea about the italics for thoughts being outdated.
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Ah–a geeky friend. Good to know, Medeia. I truly was surprised how no one–anywhere–had an iPad for notes.
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Thanks for sharing!! I’m going to stick with italicized thoughts but definitely need to keep working on editing skills. 🙂
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I think the copy editing is as complicated as the writing. This is why I have three grammar books (starting with “Elements of Style”).
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I love Elements, but even then it’s so easy to be blind to your own flaws. Such is life.
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This is superlative, Jacqui.
I don’t know if I can get used to non-italicized thoughts. Eke!
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I know what you mean. I’m not happy about that either.
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To change a subject a bit, nobody talks about the word ‘and.’ How many times is too many. I don’t believe I’ve seen it on a kill list of words. 😦
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Me either. Sure, don’t start a sentence with ‘and’, but otherwise… Sometimes it contributes nicely to variation in sentence length.
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I just realized – one of my stories has both plots!
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Ha! Leave it to you to put both plots in one place.
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Jacqui, this is by far the best writer’s conference I’ve never attended. Thank you for taking such good notes which I could easily read since you wrote on your iPad.
By virtue of what you’ve shared here, and thank you so much for your generosity, I am going next year if I have to sell my typewriter to be able to afford the fees.
And in the meantime, I’m saving this post because it is loaded with valuable info,and I’m going to apply what you learned.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. BEST POST EVER!!!!
And I will only say this once, and only here: I am a writer.
Shari
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I’ll go with you! That would be so much fun!
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Sounds like a great conference!
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It was. I’m all motivated to write!
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Very exciting!
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Thanks for sharing your experience. Sounds like a great conference. I just learned about the italics for thoughts being passe as well. I learned that if you follow the thought by “he thought” or “she wondered” or something along those lines, then you leave the italics out. But if the thought stands on its own without the qualifier, you italicize it. But I’ve seen newer books not even doing that. Ch-ch-ch-changes.
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That’s interesting. So do thoughts like dialogue? “I wonder if I can get used to that,” she thought as she scrunched her face.
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No, my editor left out the quotation marks, too. It’s simply: I wonder if I can get used to that, she thought as she scrunched her face.
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That’s interesting. It seems if I’m writing in past tense, and suddenly this present tense stuff appears–maybe it’s not confusing at all. I’m going to be on the lookout for it in the novels I read.
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Carrie & Jacqui, the use of quotation marks with ‘thought’ and ‘wonder’ had confused me. I started off using them and then decided it looked wrong so took them all out of my manuscript for these occasions. Phew, looks like that was the right thing to do. Thank you for the tip!
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This is like changing from two spaces after a period to one: a sea change in my writing habits. It will take some getting used to.
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Your surprise at italics being a thing of the past jumped out at me. I found this article and I think it does a good job at explaining how not to rely on them too much and when to use them for better emphasis: http://www.writing4success.com/Using-Italics-to-Show-Thoughts.html
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Really good article, Jennifer. I started it with my list of ‘But…’s and it answered every one of them. It makes sense to recast the thinking in past tense (if I’m writing in past tense). I can see that making a lot more sense.
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I’ve been thinking about attending a writers conference. That’s a far as I’ve gotten with project, thinking it might be something to think about.
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There’s another good one coming up–which I won’t be attending–in Los Angeles. If you do end up going to one, shout it out so I can consider joining you.
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I am not sure I’ll have the time this year. I have a lot of demands on my non-working time this year so I am not sure I’ll get the time to do it. We’ll see what works out.
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It sounds inspiring–not so bad a thing to cure the midwinter doldrums. I count myself in that over-fifty crowd, taking notes on a legal pad. I loved Number 15.
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Impossible, AV. In my had, from reading your blog, you’re early thirties. You couldn’t be any older and do what you do over there.
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Not that I want to mess with your head, my dear, but try 57. Comfortably middle-aged.
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I bet you look 35ish! Really–how do you get all that physical stuff done? Even at 57, my joints were not what they used to be. And I just make it all worse by sitting at my computer so many hours every day.
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Great post! But I have a question: if thoughts in italics is out of style, what method is recommended to portray a character’s thoughts to the reader?
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What this presenter said is that if you’re in the character’s head (which you’d have to be to know their thoughts), you are always saying what they’re thinking. My problem–which I didn’t get to ask–is there’s a difference between the past tense (which I usually write in) and the present tense of thoughts. I hope someone has an answer.
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I’m one of those ‘old-schoolers’ still using the pen and paper for everything. I thought I was passe.
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I’ve been spoiled by my ed tech conferences–no one would be seen dead with a pen-and-paper there. This one, I’d see people scrambling for their pens in overloaded bags while I calmly click-click and open to my note taker.
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You young whipper-snapper!
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Hehe.:)
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Thanks for sharing your conference experience, Jacqui. Great stuff here!
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These are great. It reminds me of how much I get out of them. I need to leave my computer more often.
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Jacqui,
I say Amen to everything you’ve said in this post. I had the privilege of attending the Women’s Fiction Festival in Matera, Italy, last year in September and experience the same things. It was absolutely a hit for me and I joined the association immediately.
Strangely enough, I was also the only person there taking notes with my iPad among the participants. That meant I stood out, which was okay by me.
Happy to hear that it was well worth your effort and if I were anywhere near California, I would attend it myself. However, I am concentrating on the Writer’s Conferences here in Europe since this is where I am living at the present moment.
Have a great week!
Shalom,
Patricia
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Darn! I usually end up going alone to these. I’d love to have a partner. A good writer’s conference does amazing things to my muse. I’m always on the hunt for one.
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Great post thank you Jacqui! Full of hopeful surprises as in eg the age of the writers attending and #2: 250,000th in Amazon rankings is good –
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That Amazon ranking really surprised me. I have a lot of non-fic on Amazon, often below 250,000 and definitely don’t feel like their great sellers.
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